


Cayenne and Honey

by Ann_Drist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Autistic Castiel, Beekeeping, Biromantic Dean, Bisexual Dean, Body Image, Cleanses, Demisexual Castiel, Eating Disorders, Fasting, Fluff, Food, Greyromantic Castiel, It's a Terrible Life, Locavore, M/M, Pining Dean, fatphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5259461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ann_Drist/pseuds/Ann_Drist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Smith is thinking about doing a cayenne and honey cleanse. Before he can start it, he needs to source the finest, local artisan ingredients he can find. (He’s also been suffering from some pesky spring allergies, and has been meaning to check out some local honey to try to clear them up.) His search leads him to Castiel, a local leader in urban beekeeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meet Cute

 

Dean Smith futzed with a ballpoint pen while staring down the clock late Monday afternoon. 

_Click click click._

He’d already sat through a conference call that morning, schmoozed his way through several sales calls, and completely emptied his inbox. He’d even worked through his lunch hour so he could leave earlier. 

Quitting time still wasn’t coming fast enough. 

_Click click click click click click._  

It didn’t help that he was hungry and irritable. Even though he’d been eating more sensibly and working out four times a week, he’d only lost five pounds in the past month. In his opinion, he had ten more to go. The stress eating was probably holding him back. And the stress drinking. 

He rubbed his stomach self-consciously. What was the point of having abs if there was a layer of padding over them, he thought grumpily. He looked _nothing_ like the chiseled hunks on the covers of his _Men’s Fitness_ magazines. 

Dean wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, but he wanted to get back into the dating game. After taking a break for . . . more months than he cared to admit. He still hadn’t recovered from his last dating attempt that had left him reeling. There had been more than a few weekends where he holed up in his apartment in his pajamas. He’d spent his nights in the company of beer, popcorn, ice cream, and pies rather than people. Losing ten pounds would give him the self-confidence he needed to get back out there. 

The errand he was going to run after work today would change things for him. He was going to an out-of-the-way specialty store to buy a few ingredients, and then he would finally be able to do that cayenne and honey cleanse he’d heard so much about. Everyone raved that it would get rid of toxins in your body and help you lose weight, but he’d been too chicken to try it. He was getting desperate now. Lots of people did it, so it couldn’t be that bad, right? Right. 

Maybe if he said it enough times he would convince himself. 

When the clock finally hit four, Dean made a break for the parking garage. He sped off in his Prius and headed downtown as quickly as the posted speed limits would allow. 

After making a wrong turn and looping around again, he finally found himself in historic downtown. It was so different from where he lived and worked. There were lots of interesting-looking old buildings, and he kept noticing tourists walking around and snapping pictures. Maybe after his errand was done, he could spend some time checking out the area, too. He pulled into a parking garage and shrugged. Why not?

After he’d parked and carefully tucked the garage ticket into his wallet, Dean was ready to go shopping for what he needed to get his life back together. And maybe have some fun checking out the area while he was at it. 

Dean double-checked the shop sign. Yup, this was the place. Canaan: Honey, Beeswax, Bees. The plaque out front declared it was a historic building. Without it, the low ceilings and doorways would have given it away. The wood paneling was dark with age. You couldn’t really fake that kind of patina, thought plenty of builders and decorators tried. 

A cheerful-sounding bell tinkled overhead as Dean walked in. The man sitting at the sales counter glanced up and gave him a nod. Then he went back to reading a magazine. He was wearing a rumpled collarless shirt and sported a scruffy almost-beard. Dean shrugged and started browsing. 

He felt a bit out of place. There were so many tiny little bottles and jars. He might consistently be in the top 20 salespeople in the entire company, but this was not his area of expertise. He didn’t know the difference between . . . raw unfiltered comb-in clover honey and . . . organic unprocessed mesquite honey. Would one of them be better for a cleanse? Would either of them help with spring allergies? Was that actually a thing, anyway, or just holistic health enthusiasts getting hyped up over nothing? And since when could you even make honey from mesquite? He’d always associated that with wood fires for barbecue. 

_Stop thinking about that, stop thinking about that. You’re only allowed to have mesquite-smoked ribs after the cleanse, after you lose those last ten pounds._

The man at the counter glanced at him a few times. He still seemed pretty engrossed in his magazine. 

Which was titled “Locavore Monthly.” Whatever the hell that meant. 

Dean shook his head and got back to scanning honey-jar labels. He was going cross-eyed from the tiny print. Imported volcanic honey? That sounded dangerous. Were there bees that actually lived in volcanoes? The more labels he read, the more confused and indecisive he became. 

He got distracted by a display of body care items. That was something he was more familiar with. He picked out a bar soap and a lip balm that listed honey and beeswax as their main ingredients. 

The clerk dragged himself away from his reading material. “If you’ll allow me, I can hold those items for you as you continue looking around.”

“Yeah, sure, thanks man. Um, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of what honey to get. I heard that local honey was good for allergies, but . . .” Dean gestured hopelessly at the shelves and shelves of honey jars. 

The clerk stared attentively at him. “What part of town do you live in?”

“That matters?” said Dean. 

“Different micro-ecosystems, different concentrations of local plants.” 

Dean blinked. The clerk didn’t. “Oh, okay. Uh, I live in mid-town.” 

The man’s eyes brightened. “Ah, all right. Then for you, this is as local as it gets.” He scanned the impressive inventory and plucked a jar from the shelf. 

Dean glanced at the label and looked back at the clerk. “Okay, awesome. Is this one good?” 

“It’s one of my favorites, but I’m biased.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

The clerk nodded. “That one comes from my bees.” 

“Come again now?” 

“I have a colony that I keep.” 

“What, in town? How does that work? I thought that was something people did out in the country, on farms and stuff.” 

“I keep the hive on the roof of my apartment building.” 

“What? That’s—Don’t your neighbors complain?” 

The man tilted his head. “If it’s good enough for the Paris Opera House, it’s good enough for my building.” 

“There are bees in the Paris Opera House?” 

“On the roof, yes. Have been for over twenty years.” 

“Well, I’ll be damned. Learn something new every day.” 

W _hy is he still holding eye contact?_ It was starting to make Dean slightly uncomfortable, but he was reluctant to look away. This guy had really pretty, pale blue eyes. Like the sky on a clear day. Or a lake in the mountains. Or—-

“Spring is coming soon, so you should start taking it right away.” 

Dean blinked and tried to focus. “Daily, right?” 

“At least three times a day, at least a tablespoon per serving.” 

Dean made a face. “That’s so many calories.” 

“Yes, all food has calories. You don’t have to put it on top of pancakes, you can just mix it in some herbal tea.” 

Dean sighed.

The clerk’s brow creased. “You’re not diabetic, are you?” 

“No,” Dean said, and muttered under his breath, “but I might be if I start eating honey three times a day.” 

The clerk narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. 

Shit, Dean hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“I was gonna do a cayenne and honey cleanse anyway, so I figured I could do that and knock out my allergies at the same time.”

The clerk looked even more dismayed. “I can’t believe you would do that to my honey.” 

_Oh my god, this guy._ “Well, that’s what people do, isn’t it? Take it home and use it?” 

“Yes, but for a crash diet fad? Watering it down and mixing it with so much cayenne that you can’t even taste the honey itself?” 

“Well, it’s good for you . . . it cleanses the toxins.” 

“The human body cleanses toxins on its own. Cayenne is an irritant when used in large doses. Those cayenne pepper ‘cleanses’ are essentially laxatives with herbal ingredients.” 

Dean frowned. Easy for this guy to say. His shirt was a bit loose, but the way it draped made it obvious that he was lean under there. He probably never felt pressured to try crash diets or cleanses. 

Dean may have tried a crash diet once. He may also have sworn off them when he almost fainted at work. But cleanses were all about detoxifying. Which was healthy. 

Right? 

Dean was struggling for a biting comeback, but couldn’t think of any that won’t reveal his own history of dieting and current insecurity about his body. 

“Alright, whatever,” the clerk said. He took the jar of honey over to the counter and started ringing up Dean’s items. He pulled out a pamphlet and waved it at Dean. 

“If that ‘cleanse’ thing doesn’t work out for you, you should go to this. It’s a local festival, kind of a glorified farmers’ market. It’s going to have all kinds of locally-sourced food. Heirloom veggies, in-season fruit, cookbooks by local chefs, so you can, you know, get some ideas for actually using that honey as food. If you plan on taking it multiple times a day for allergies, you might as well enjoy it. Get a loaf of artisan bread and drizzle it on, get some herbs you can use to make a tea with it. Or get a cookbook so you can use it in recipes.” 

Dean frowned. “What in the hell is ‘artisan’ bread? And how is herb tea different from regular tea?” 

“Oh, for—” He thrust the pamphlet at him. “Go there this weekend. Find out.” 

Dean looked it over a bit skeptically. Then the man told him the total. 

“Jesus Christ, that much? I’m buying _one_ jar of honey, a bar of soap, and a lip balm, not the whole damn store!” 

The clerk started rattling off something about “small-batch” “local” “rare” “sustainable” and something about a percentage of proceeds going towards an urban revival campaign and community food gardens for people in need. Dean didn’t know what he was freaking talking about, but it sounded like stuff worth supporting. “Okay, fine, shut up and take my money, I guess.” 

The clerk held out a keypad for Dean to swipe his debit card on. Before putting his wallet away, Dean held up his garage ticket and tilted his head. “Do you guys validate parking?” 

The clerk’s eyes widened in either irritation or disbelief. Maybe both. “ _No_.” 

Feeling disgruntled, Dean left the shop. He could have sworn he heard the clerk exhale an irritated sigh the moment he walked out the door. Also, Dean was vaguely hoping he hadn’t been ripped off. 

Still, he let himself wander down the tree-lined sidewalk and take a look at the other old buildings and their interesting shops. After a bit of window-shopping, he ducked inside a few. He paid through the nose for fair-trade coffee beans from a women’s collective in Mexico. He also picked up some jasmine incense and a vegan soy candle that claimed to smell like ‘serenity.’ (Were candles normally not vegan? Were there animal parts in regular candles? What the hell?) 

As he walked back to the parking garage he took a look at the pamphlet the honey shop clerk had shoved in his face. It was the same event advertised in the other shops he’d been in. It sounded like it would have cool stuff like honey soap, Mexican coffee beans, and vegan candles, plus fresh produce and food.

_Maybe I will check it out this weekend. If nothing better comes up._

 

_***_

Nothing better came up.

 


	2. Second Meet Cute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean Smith makes an appearance at the "Get Local" festival. 
> 
> This chapter's POV is from the shop clerk/beekeeper from chapter 1.

The Get Local festival was the place to be early Saturday morning. The advertising campaign supported by local specialty shops had been successful. The place was packed. Among all the newcomers, the farmer’s market regulars were out in full force. Castiel noticed many familiar faces in the bustling crowd.  

Business was booming at his booth. People were buying wares, picking up business cards for Canaan, and some were even asking for information about starting their own beehives. There were a lot of questions for him to field as he tried to ring up customers and make change without the benefit of a cash register. Just as he was starting to lose energy and get frazzled, a nearby booth started handing out complimentary cheese samples. The crowd milled away.

Castiel breathed a sigh of relief and started re-organizing his booth, putting away all the receipts and digging through his boxes of understock to replenish the fastest-selling items. Once he’d gotten everything in order again he felt much more at ease. He took a long sip of his cold honeyed mint tea and felt the tension ease out of his shoulders. 

He noticed another familiar face wandering down the aisle of booths, and he frowned a bit when he couldn’t place who it was. Normally Castiel was good at remembering people, especially ones involved in the local farm-to-table movement. The man who seemed familiar was wearing a salmon-colored polo shirt and khakis with—were those front creases? Who on earth bothered to get their casual attire _pressed_? 

The beekeeper frowned. Why did he know someone who dressed like this? He looked very clean-cut. Maybe he was a corporate supporter of the localvore movement. 

It wasn’t until Castiel noticed his cell phone clipped to his waist that he remembered who the man was. 

_It’s that douchebag from earlier this week!_ Castiel almost hadn’t recognized him without out the thick tie and those wide, garish suspenders. His weekend look was an improvement, Castiel supposed, but _creased khakis_? Really? 

And upon closer look, his polo was embroidered with some kind of animal that was supposed to signify which overpriced retailer his shirt had come from. Castiel had never bothered to keep track of all the emblems from the different brands. This one looked like . . . a sheep? With a tree sprouting out of its back? That couldn’t be right. 

Castiel leaned forward on the counter as the man drew nearer. “Hey, you made it,” Castiel called out. The man looked up, surprised, and his face broke into a sheepish grin when he recognized Castiel. 

“Yeah, uh, you know, pantry was getting kind of bare, and you made it sound like this would be a cool place to check out.” 

“It is, I think you’ll enjoy it. How do you like the honey?”  

“Totally different than that stuff that comes in a little bear-shaped plastic bottle from the grocery store. Blew me away, honestly, the first time I tried it. It’s not a sweet as I was expecting, it’s more . . . I dunno, I suck at explaining stuff like that. Great stuff though. I’m secretly kinda happy I gotta eat it three times a day.”

“Did you do that ‘cleanse’ you were telling me about?” Cas asked, using finger quotes.  

The man was a bit shamefaced. “I did.” 

“So how’d that go?”

He paused, considering his words. “Shitty. It was literally shitty.” 

Castiel bit back a smile. “What did I tell you?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I shoulda listened to you. So what do you got going on in this booth? Anything I missed out on at the store?” 

Castiel glanced around. “When you were in, we were out of our hand creme. It’s so popular I have trouble making enough to keep it in stock. It has a beeswax base, mixed with fair-trade almond oil to keep it from being too heavy.” 

“Wow. So you don’t just sell the stuff and keep bees, you make this stuff, too?” 

Castiel nodded. “Most of the items, yes.” 

“Nice. I think I’m good on hand lotion for now, but I’ll keep that in mind next time I need some. It’d probably go nice with that hand soap I got from you.” 

“Hand and body. It’s gentle enough for both.” 

The man nodded. “Good to know.” Then he snapped his fingers. “Do you have, like, a honey face soap? Or facial moisturizer?” 

Castiel frowned. “No, I don’t.” 

“Ah, that’s too bad.” The man rubbed his jaw. “My face tends to get kinda dry after shaving and honey’s like, a humectant, right? Creates that little protective barrier on your skin, draws in moisture from the air?” 

Castiel leaned back lightly, impressed in spite of himself. “Sounds like you know your honey after all.” 

The customer waved away the compliment. “Nah, I really don’t, I just know my skincare.” 

Castiel nodded thoughtfully. “Honey facial soap and moisturizer. I’ll remember that the next time I have enough extra materials to give that a try.” 

“Awesome. Looking forward to it.” The conversation flagged for a moment. Dean scanned the wares on display. “Well, since you don’t have anything else I need to buy, I don’t suppose you have any herbal tea bags?” 

Castiel shuddered. “Don’t make your tea with tea bags. As a personal favor to me, since I know you’ll be using my honey it it.” 

The man shot him an annoyed look. “How am I supposed to make tea without tea bags?” 

Castiel rubbed his temples. “You poor lost soul,” he murmured. 

“ _Excuse_ me?” 

Castiel looked around at the thinning crowds, then folded back a section of the counter and stepped out of the booth. “Follow me.” 

“Uhh, where are we going? And what about your booth?” 

“We’re going to a place that will answer the question you just asked me. And it always gets slower this time of day, the booth will be fine without me for a few minutes.” 

He led them to a table that sat under an awning and sign that read “Uriel Herbs.” 

“Castiel, good to see you,” the man behind the table said. “Who’s your friend here?” 

Castiel gestured at the other man to introduce him, “Uriel, this is . . .” Castiel paused and stared blankly at the man standing next to him. “I have no idea what your name is.” 

The customer laughed. “I’m Dean, Dean Smith.” 

Uriel nodded in greeting.

Dean glanced over at the beekeeper. “And he called you—I didn’t really catch that. Castile?” 

“Castiel,” he corrected. 

“Kass-tee-el,” Dean sounded out. 

“Yes.” 

“Yeah, I’m just gonna call you ‘Cas.’” 

_Asshole._

“So what can help you with?” Uriel asked.

“Well, this guy got me set up with some fantastic honey, I want some herb tea to go with it, but he tells me I’m not allowed to use tea bags. So I guess that’s where you come in.” 

Just as Castiel had, Uriel shuddered when the customer—Dean—said “tea bags.” 

“Well Castiel did the right thing bringing you here,” Uriel said gravely. “What herbs are you looking for?” 

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Uhh, I dunno specifically … just something de-stressing, maybe something that helps with getting to sleep.” 

Castiel frowned a bit. “You have trouble sleeping?” 

“Yeah.” Dean made a face. “Work.” 

Uriel turned his back on them to survey his collection of freshly-cut herbs. With some input from Castiel, he selected chamomile, lemon balm, and rosemary. He started ringing up Dean’s purchases while Castiel pointed some of the booths Dean should check out next. 

Nora popped up at his shoulder. “Castiel, when you have a moment I wanted to talk to you—” She trailed off when she caught sight of Dean. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” 

“You’re not, really, I was just about to get back to my booth.” 

“Still, if you’d told me you’d brought a date with you, I wouldn’t have tried to bother you with shop talk.” 

Cas tilted his head. “Why would I bring a date to an event I was working at?” 

“Oh. My mistake, you two just looked a little … cozy.” 

Dean raised his eyebrows a bit. Cas frowned. “That’s not what this is.” 

Dean put on a smile. “Yeah, he’s just my honey guy, not my honey.” He chucked a bit and then stopped when no one else joined in. “Sorry, that was a terrible pun. But no, yeah, what he said, Cas here was just being kind enough to show me the ropes, I’m new to…” he gestured at Uriel’s table and the other booths “…all this.” 

“He was asking me about tea bags,” Castiel told Nora.

She shuddered.

“All right,” Dean said. “Well there’s a bunch of stuff here I haven’t gotten to see yet,” he turned to Cas, “And I’ve already taken up a lot of your time. I… guess I’ll see you around.” 

“Yes. And I hope the tea helps.” 

“Yeah, me, too. Thanks.” 

They went their separate ways. As Cas walked back to his booth, he couldn’t help overhearing Nora. 

“I feel like the potential for something may be there, though. I mean, come on, how cute are they together?” 

There was a slight pause. “Not very.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The logo on Dean's polo shirt is the Brooks Brother's logo.
> 
> Also, there's nothing wrong with making tea from tea bags, okay? The author does not condone this kind of judgmental attitude. These are just farmer's market folks who take their food and drink very seriously, and want everything they consume to be fresh and local. 
> 
> So, Dean and Castiel meet again, and finally learn each other's names! Well, Dean kind of learns Castiel's name. 
> 
> I wonder if they'll meet again...maybe in the next chapter...hmmm...

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I wonder who that guy in the honey shop was. 
> 
> I wonder if we'll see him in this fic again.
> 
> Or if the next chapter will be from his point of view.
> 
> Stayyyyyy tuuuuuuned.


End file.
